


Emma & Oliver

by winstallenski



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Domestic, F/M, Family, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Original Character(s), Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Team Arrow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:06:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7318255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winstallenski/pseuds/winstallenski
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After finally defeating Damien Darhk, Star City is on the long, hard road to recovery. Oliver Queen is now mayor of the city, and is doing his best to restore his hometown back to its former glory.<br/>Along with his newfound responsibilities to the city, Oliver has also taken on another demanding role – single father</p>
            </blockquote>





	Emma & Oliver

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a newer version of Emma & Oliver. I decided to make it an actual fic instead of doing little drabbles because I work better this way, and I think it has a lot of potential. It's written as an AU to season four, taking place after Damien Darhk has been defeated. Like w/ William, Oliver had discovered Emma's existence by accident but wanted to be apart of her life. Her mother gave him the same ultimatum and he followed it, keeping her a secret from Felicity and everyone else. This of course resulted in the end of his relationship with Felicity when she found out the truth.   
> After Emma is abducted by Damien Darhk, he sends her and her mother away. Deciding Emma's life would be better without him in it, he doesn't know their location and never will.   
> Unfortunately, the nuclear bomb Felicity had redirected from Monument Point hit Havenrock, the new town Emma & her mother had just moved to. As a result of the explosion, Emma's mother dies.  
> Word gets back to Oliver that a child from the incident was claiming to be his daughter. When he discovers Emma & learns of her mother's demise, he decides to raise her on his own.  
> In this AU, Laurel is still dead. Tommy Merlyn is alive. Oliver, Lyla, Tommy, and Felicity are the only ones still residing in Star City. The rest of team arrow will make their way back eventually.

The warmth of the morning sun beat down on Oliver’s bare back as he laid face down in his bed, the rays shining brightly through his window. He stirred while the heat warmed him, burying his head deeper into his pillow in an attempt to avoid the inevitable – waking up.

This wasn’t like him. He had always been a morning person. His traumatic nightmares saw to that. Ever since the island, sleep had not come easy to him. But recently, that was all he ever wanted.

Since becoming mayor he had been putting in long hours at the office, and even longer hours in the streets, ridding the city of as many goons as he possibly could. But the demands of his night job and his day job didn’t even compare to the ample amount of effort he was putting into his most challenging job yet.

Fatherhood.

Oliver grumbled incoherently as he heard his bedroom door creak open, followed by the distinct pitter patter of tiny feet against the hardwood floor. He couldn’t help but smile to himself while he laid immobile in the comfort of his sheets and waited for the tiny person who had just entered his room to join him.

Just as he had predicted, the bed dipped and suddenly he felt an extra weight on his back. Dark curls fell against his cheek, blinding his vision and tickling his skin.

“You know, most children have to be dragged from their beds in the mornings,” Oliver mumbled. “But you’re not most children, are you?”

He heard a distinct “hmph” sound emit from the child. His sweet, adorable child.

Reluctantly, Oliver began to sit up, reaching around his back to pull his daughter around to face him. She crawled onto his side, taking up residence on his pillow as a tiny yawn escaped her mouth. He smiled sleepily at the six-year-old, her familiar blue eyes twinkling in the morning light.

“Emma,” he began, his voice laden with sleep. “I know you’re excited for your first day, but you don’t have to be to school for three more hours.”

Emma peered over at the clock on his nightstand, scrunching her tiny nose as she realized how early it was. She looked back at Oliver who she could tell was beyond exhausted, and not exactly pleased to be awake at such an ungodly hour.

“Can we sleep just a little longer? Please?”

As soon as she nodded her agreement, Oliver laid back down, pulling her closer to his chest as he settled into his mattress. Almost immediately, Emma began to doze off. He could feel her curiously tracing his visible scars as sleep began to consume her. She had quickly become fascinated with them and he could always tell by the expression on her face whenever she caught a glimpse of his wounds that, inside that imaginative brain of hers, she was desperately trying to figure out for herself how he had been afflicted with such atrocious contusions.

He hadn’t meant for her to see them. He always got too warm at night, no matter the time of year, so he wasn’t used to sleeping with a shirt on. He always put her down before he got ready for bed himself, and he made a point to cover himself before waking her in the mornings. But when her nightmares started, his little routine flew right out the window.

One night Emma woke up screaming, and of course he ran to her without a second thought. It was an instinct every parent knew. When he got to her she was trembling, tears pouring from her terrified eyes. So he scooped her up and brought her back to his room. He hadn’t realized until after he turned the lights on that he was shirtless, but it was too late – Emma was already fixated with his scars.

He had been caught off guard; he didn’t know what to tell her, so he said nothing. He had stood in silence, clenching and unclenching his hands as he nervously thought about what she might say, believing that her curiosity would get the best of her and she’d be so transfixed with his wounds that she’d absolutely have to ask him what happened. But even his battle scars couldn’t lure her out of her reclusive state. Instead, Emma had simply stared up at him with questioning eyes, her nose red from all the crying she had done. She sat and traced his scars until she fell asleep.

It had become a habit; whenever Emma woke up from a nightmare, Oliver would rush in to comfort her and she’d outline the marks on his skin until she felt safe enough to sleep again. He didn’t mind so much since the routine seemed to bring her some form of solace in her time of distress, and that was all he wanted.

Laying with her now, the deep hum of her breathing was a source of comfort of his own. It was always silent moments like these that caused an overwhelming amount of emotion to bubble up inside his chest, filling him to the brim until he truly felt like he would burst at the seams from all the love he felt for the little girl who had entered his life by chance.

At the moment, all of Oliver’s loved ones were scattered around the world. Little Emma was the only constant in his life right now.

After everything that happened with Damien Darhk, his sister Thea left town to focus on herself. Fearing she was losing herself, she knew she had to get out before it got to the point where she barely recognized the person staring back at her in the mirror.  
She called every once in a while, but he had no information on her exact location. All he knew was that she was safe, and that she was with Roy.

Oliver didn’t care where she was, as long as she was happy.

Feeling he needed some time away from the city and the team, John reenlisted in the military. Although it meant leaving baby Sara and Lyla behind, it was something he needed to do for himself. Oliver hated to see him go, but if space was what he needed, he wouldn’t argue.

Lance left with Donna, and to Oliver’s luck, Felicity stayed behind. Since defeating Darhk, she had somehow managed to regain control of Palmer Tech, and was once again CEO.

With her back in a position of power and him busy with his duties as mayor, they only ever saw each other at night, when they worked together in the lair to protect the city from harm. Although, Oliver had reached out several times to spend time together outside of work, usually at his house, as friends and such. But Felicity was always reluctant, and often declined.

Just when he had started to feel completely alone in the world again, his best friend came home.

Tommy Merlyn. Party boy turned doctor. Oliver still had a hard time wrapping his head around that one.

A few years back, after he had narrowly survived being trapped in a collapsing building (caused by an event that his own father had started), Tommy decided to go back to college. Before dropping out of school, he had completed four years’ undergrad, and two years of medical school.

With all his reckless behavior, it was still hard to believe he had ever gotten that far.

But after his near-death experience, Tommy was a changed man. Because of his father’s “death”, he had inherited whatever money he had left. Tommy used that to put himself through school again, leaving town to pursue his medical degree elsewhere. He and Oliver kept in touch, of course, but Tommy kept his distance. He was focused on making something of himself – of being someone other than Malcom Merlyn’s son.

It had been three years, and he was succeeding quite well on his own when he heard the news about Laurel. Oliver had given him a call, hoping to catch a spare moment to talk, but there had been no answer. He left a message but didn’t expect a call back – Tommy was usually too busy to chat.

To Oliver’s surprise, Tommy showed up at his door the next day. He looked like hell – his dark hair was disheveled, eyes glassy and rimmed red from the crying he had done. He had opened his mouth to speak but Oliver barely let him get a word out before engulfing him in a fierce hug.

Tommy extended his stay in Star City when he found out that his best friend had been appointed as the new mayor of their hometown. No amount of words could fully describe how proud he was of Oliver; of the man he had become. They had both come so far in the past few years, both on the path to bettering themselves. It was amazing to see the fruit of their labor.

Learning that Oliver was about to embark on the journey of single-fatherhood influenced Tommy to move back home for good.

It wasn’t too much of a shock to discover that through all his years of debauchery, Oliver had fathered a child. The thing Tommy couldn’t wrap his head around was why he was the very last to know.

After a few moments of bickering Tommy let the whole thing slide, realizing that even if Oliver had tried to tell him before, he probably would have been too busy to take his call.

Nonetheless, there was no way he was going to abandon his best friend during his time of need.

With everyone leaving, the last thing he wanted was for Oliver to go through this new endeavor all on his own. Running a city and taking care of a child were no easy tasks.

So Tommy applied for residency at Starling General Hospital, almost immediately gaining acceptance since the hospital was in desperate need for doctors, and got himself an apartment in the city. It was strange being back home after fighting so hard to put that place behind him, but his best friend needed him whether he was willing to admit it or not. Besides, it’s nice to be surrounded by people who care about you.  
And he had always wanted to be an uncle.

Oliver was beyond grateful for all the help Tommy was lending his way. Ever since Darhk was defeated, his life had become a never-ending whirlwind.

By a unanimous decision made by the city council, he was elected mayor of Star City. After his efforts to keep the citizens of the town united, the board members saw him as the best fit for the job. And since the other candidates were wiped out, he really was the only guy still willing to take on such a challenge.

But Oliver barely had time to relish in his victory. Just a week before he was to be sworn in as mayor, volunteers at the Havenrock devastation managed to get a hold of him. He was told there was a little girl injured in the blast, one of the only surviving citizens, claiming to be his daughter.

In that moment, he felt as if the world stopped turning. When he had last seen Emma, he was pretty certain it was for the final time. After Darhk had captured her, he decided it was too dangerous for her to be a part of his life. Reluctantly, he asked Emma’s mother to relocate them to a new city. In the hopes of keeping her safe, he was never to know of their location.

The thought that they had been living in the very city that was decimated by the nuclear bomb Darhk had set off made him sick to his stomach.

Emma and the other survivors had been moved to a location just outside of Havenrock. He learned upon arrival that Emma’s mother had sadly perished in the blast. They found the little girl under a pile of debris, her mother’s lifeless body beside her. Despite the hazardous conditions surrounding her and the injuries she had suffered, Emma somehow managed to stay alive for two days before being rescued.

Curious as to how the volunteers figured out the connection between him and Emma, Oliver questioned how they knew that he was her father. According to everyone there, no one could get a word out of the child – she wouldn’t speak to anyone. The doctor’s called her silence a coping mechanism, informing him that she was showing signs of suffering from PTSD which was to be expected considering all that she had been through. But her silence made it impossible to gain the information they needed to identify her and notify next of kin.

The whole situation had begun to feel hopeless until one day when Emma had spotted him on the television. The news had been covering the chaos erupting in Star City, and his speech had been broadcast on several stations. When Emma saw him she urgently pointed to the television, gathering everyone’s attention. When asked if she knew him, she had nodded vigorously, never pulling her eyes from the screen. One of the volunteers asked if he was her father, and she simply smiled – the first smile they had ever seen grace her face since she’d been rescued.

It took several days to track him down, but they finally managed to get a hold of someone who got a hold of someone who got a hold of someone else, and the rest just fell into place.

Oliver desperately wanted to know how Emma found out the truth. Had her mother told her? Was she upset that he hadn’t told her himself?

But in that moment, none of those questions really mattered. As soon as he saw her with his own eyes, saw that she was alive and in one piece, Oliver rushed to her bedside and held her as tightly as she would allow.

While he held her in his arms, he kept thinking how everything could have ended so differently. How he could have lost her forever. Just like he had lost his father and mother. Just like he had lost Laurel.

He couldn’t lose Emma too, not ever.

There was no legitimate proof that he was her father, but seeing as though their priority was to get survivors placed in the safest conditions possible, the help group allowed Oliver to take Emma away. He was to be greeted by a social worker as soon as they arrived back in Star City, who would then discuss options for her future.

In Oliver’s mind, there were no other options to consider. Emma was his daughter, his family. And after everything they had both lost, he wasn’t going to let her go. Not again.

Thanks to his newfound connections in city hall, Oliver was able to speed up the custody proceedings.

His paternity test only confirmed what they had already known, but it was necessary to verify that he and Emma truly were family. Once that was out of the way, the court needed some proof that he had the means to provide for her. Since he was days away from becoming mayor, there was no need to inquire about income. However, he also needed to find a home for the two of them that met the courts standards.

At that point in time Oliver and Emma were staying with Tommy, but he knew that couldn’t go on forever. Although Tommy and Emma had taken a liking to each other; they seemed to enjoy each other’s company quite a bit.

Nonetheless, Oliver had to find a proper home for his child as soon as possible. This is where Felicity’s expertise came in.

It only took her a couple minutes to find houses for sale based off of certain criteria that she had deemed most important: location, what the neighborhoods were like, the ratings of the closest elementary schools. All these components played a part in the home he chose for them.

In the end he picked a house in a neighborhood called Glenn Cove. He wouldn’t admit it, but his decision was slightly influenced by the fact that the place reminded him so much of Ivy Town.

The house itself was a bit bigger than was necessary for just two people, but the second he saw the gray exterior with its white paneling and lush front lawn, the life that he and Emma could have together in that home had flashed before his eyes.  
[http://40.media.tumblr.com/9412594a57adece2c3f25e9a55abfdea/tumblr_mmzm95RbxC1sr2h89o1_500.jpg]

He imagined her running up the porch steps after school and straight into his arms, excited to tell him about the day she had. He imagined hanging her drawings on the refrigerator, telling her how beautiful her work was while he made her afternoon snack. He imagined putting her to bed each night with a story that ignited her imagination, granting her sweet dreams while she slept soundly.

He saw the life that they could have, the life he wanted them to have just by taking one look at that vacant house that sat in the middle of a quiet, quaint neighborhood.

Oliver bought the house on the spot, and after showing the place to Emma’s social worker, he signed the custody papers that afternoon.

Soon afterwards, Tommy and Lyla helped him and Emma get settled in their new home. Felicity came by as well to see the place and to give his little girl a gift.

It was a doll. One with dark hair and blue eyes just like Emma. Felicity had also bought the clothes and accessories that went with it, along with her blonde-haired companion so she’d have a friend.

Emma had smiled so wide when she saw the dolls, Oliver thought her face might split in two. It warmed his heart to see her so happy even if it was only for a few minutes.

After receiving her gift, Emma catapulted herself into Felicity, wrapping her arms around her neck as a way to thank her. Felicity hugged her back tightly, hiding her face in the child’s hair so no one could see the tears welling in her eyes.

That was the first and last time Felicity came over.

Because Oliver was preoccupied adjusting to his new situation, his official induction as mayor was pushed back by a week.

Of course his ability to perform as mayor came into question as news of Emma’s existence came to light. He didn’t know how the media found out, but they were sure having a heyday spinning stories and spewing speculations that made the situation appear more sordid than it actually was.

It was scandalous for a city official to have an illegitimate child. Yet many of the council members seemed to think his newfound fatherhood painted him in a better light. In their words, Oliver taking Emma in only proved how responsible he had become; his former party boy persona was far behind him.

Oliver had never cared what anybody thought of him, and he certainly didn’t give a damn now. All he cared about was doing right by his daughter and his city. No amount of negativity would ever stop him from doing that.

The alarm clock on Oliver’s bedside obnoxiously rang to life, causing his sleepy child to stir and him to push the thing the floor.

Emma’s curls shook as she raised her head from his chest, blinking her baby blue eyes rapidly while she got to her feet. Her tiny hands gripped his biceps as she shook him, urging him to get up too.

Oliver groaned, peering at her through half-open eyes. “I know, I know, it’s time to wake up.” He then sat up, rubbing his hands over his face while Emma continued to tug on his arm.

“Are you ready for your first day, bug?” he asked.

A smile lit up her face as she nodded vigorously, excitement brewing inside her. Seeing her so upbeat and jolly made him happy too. She had come a long way since her mother’s untimely passing.

When they had first moved in, there had been days where Emma never left the bed. She rarely smiled and barely had the motivation to do anything. Now three months had passed and she was as lively as a butterfly.

He knew what it was like to struggle the way she had. That was why moments like these usually brought him so much joy. But even though today was exciting for her, it was very bittersweet for him.

For three months, he and Emma had been glued at the hip. They were rarely ever apart and when they were, it wasn’t for very long.

But today would change all that. Emma was going to the first grade. She’d be in school all day while he worked at city hall, contributing his time to the city he promised to help rebuild.

Oliver knew this day was coming and he realized how important it was for Emma to interact with kids her age, but he had gotten so used to having her around, he wasn’t sure how he would survive their time apart.

Emma didn’t seem to be as troubled as he was, though. She exuberated excitement, prancing around his bedroom as she waited for him to get out of bed.

It was hard not to be affected by her chipper mood.

Oliver finally untangled himself from his bedsheets and stood up, stretching his tired limbs. Emma quickly moved his way, attaching herself to his right leg while she smiled up at him. He returned the sentiment, his own smile broadening as his child clung to him like a leech.

In all honesty, he was so not ready for this day. But she was.

And in the end, that was all that mattered.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoy this alternate version of Emma & Oliver! The drabbles were kind of all over the place, and now that I have a better feel of Felicity and Oliver as a couple, I do believe that I can do them justice now.   
> In this, Felicity and Oliver have not gotten back together. She is trying to focus on herself and her business while coping with the aftermath of Darhk's destruction, while Oliver is focusing on Emma and his duties to the city.   
> But they will find their way back to each other eventually; Emma will have a lot to do with that. I'm excited to explore the dynamic between her and Felicity, especially since Felicity feels a huge responsibility for the explosion that killed Emma's mother.   
> Thanks for reading! Leave me a comment & let me know what you think :)


End file.
